Mangadu Kamakshi Amman Temple

The street to the east gate is lined with flower stalls and heaps of lemons. Walk through it into the temple and you find that the sanctum's chief object of worship is not a statue but the Arthameru, a Sri Chakra worshipped as the Goddess herself, with a panchaloha image of Adi Kamakshi behind it. From the front hall you can see four forms of her at once: the Sri Chakra, Adi Kamakshi, Kamakshi doing penance amid five fires, and a small ever-burning Kamakshi lamp that is also worshipped as the Goddess. The place was once a dense mango forest, which is what Mangadu means.

The temple legend goes like this. One day on Kailasa, Uma playfully covered Shiva's eyes with both hands. At once the world went dark and every creature suffered. His answer was a sentence: go down to earth, sit in penance, and when the hour came he would find her and take her as his bride. Seeking to make amends, she came to this mango grove. Five fires burned around her. Balanced on one toe at the edge of the central flame, one leg drawn up across the other, a rosary held high and her eyes shut, she began. Even the fire did not bring him; only when she stood on one leg on a needle's point did he appear. Tamil speech still says of anyone who wins by sheer stubbornness that "he did it standing on one leg", and the saying comes from her. Then, as Shiva directed, she went on to Kanchipuram to be married. Because she did her penance here before taking her seat in the Kamakottam at Kanchi, she is Adi Kamakshi, the first Kamakshi, and Thavakkamakshi, Kamakshi of the penance.

When she left she did not put out her fire. Ages later its heat still scorched Mangadu and the country around it, and nothing could live there. Adi Shankara, travelling through the land, saw what had happened and installed the Arthameru Sri Chakra on the very spot of her penance. The heat died away and the land came back to life.

That Sri Chakra is the heart of the temple. It is made of eight herbs, the ashtagandham, and has 43 triangles. It rises from a tortoise-shaped base through three steps and two lotuses, of sixteen petals and then eight, to the yantra at the top. Because it is made of herbs it is never bathed; it receives sandal paste and civet and a kumkum archana, while all the abhishekams go to the panchaloha Kamakshi. The chakra is dressed in an eighteen-cubit sari, wears a silver cover through the year, and appears in a gold cover only on Vijayadasami. Every evening the Goddess rides out in a golden chariot with Saraswati and Lakshmi, Brahmi at the reins and the nine maidens around them. An ever-burning lamp stands in the middle of the great hall, with the Thavakkamakshi shrine to its left, installed at the wish of the Kanchi Paramacharya. The sabha mandapam has shrines for Vinayaka, Surya, Bhairava and Adi Shankara, and the Sapta Matrikas stand in the outer corridor. The halls inside are of granite. The sacred tree, fittingly, is the mango.

Two more temples in the town carry the story on. At the nearby Velleeswarar temple, Shiva, coming to bless the Goddess in her penance, first answered Sukracharya, who had prayed to him before her. Sukra had lost an eye when, as a bee, he blocked the spout of the water pot while Mahabali was making his gift to Vamana, and Vamana pierced him with a blade of darbha grass; here his sight came back, and so the Lord is also Bhargaveswarar. The goddess there has no shrine of her own, only her feet, and farmers offer paddy and mangoes to a Vinayaka who holds both. About half a kilometre south is Vaikunta Perumal: Vishnu brought wedding gifts for his sister and, at Markandeya's request, stayed on. He holds the discus ready in one hand and in the other a ring, the token of those gifts, which is why he is called Seer Perumal.

Tradition puts the age of the temple at two to three thousand years, though no inscription has been recorded here to back that up. The building is in the Chola style. Its south-facing rajagopuram of seven tiers is a recent addition, about 71 ft tall, with seven gold-plated kalasams and some six hundred painted stucco figures; many people still use the older east entrance through the market street, where the flagstaff stands. Inside the complex is a tank about 200 ft square with eighteen steps down to the water, where a three-day float festival begins on Thaipusam. Run by the Tamil Nadu HR&CE Department, the temple trust also looks after six other temples in the town, among them Velleeswarar, Vaikunta Perumal, Maanthiyamman and Gangaiamman.

People come with all kinds of prayers: for marriage, a child, a job, a promotion, relief from illness. Mangadu is known above all for its six-week worship. You pick a day of the week and come for darshan with two lemons; the priest gives one back, which you take home, and the next week, on the same day, you return with two fresh lemons. After six weeks of this, in the seventh you offer milk, milk with honey or milk payasam and share it with the people at the temple to close the vow; among those who drink it, the Goddess herself comes as one of them. Unmarried people, men as well as women, tie a yellow thread as they pray, and couples hoping for a child tie a small cradle. Offering a sari, a milk abhishekam or a meal for devotees are common vows too. These are acts of faith and no result is promised; for health concerns, medical advice comes first.